New York City: Dead Rabbit (January 2018)


Enjoy a Drink at the World’s Best Cocktail Bar
My spouse and I visited the Dead Rabbit Grocery and Grog for drinks on a Tuesday evening in late January 2018. The pub is open daily from 11:00 am until 4:00 am. Live music, DJs, and special event nights (with deals on oysters, pot pies, and prime rib roast) are offered on certain evenings. The Dead Rabbit has held the honor of being one of the world’s best bars for several years running, even being named number 1 in 2016! It hold other awards including “World's Best Cocktail Menu”, “Best American Cocktail Bar”, and “International Bartender of the Year”. The owners of Dead Rabbit also operate Manhattan’s BlackTail (with a Cuban bar Prohibition theme).
The “Dead Rabbits” was the name of a reputed Irish American criminal street gang in Lower Manhattan in the 1850s. The group was so called because they supposedly carried a dead rabbit on a spear and were said to throw a dead rabbit in the middle of a fight before it began. The Dead Rabbits were sometimes called the "Mulberry Street Boys" because of the street where they operated in the Five Points area. For more than a decade, "Dead Rabbit” became the standard phrase by which city residents described any scandalously riotous individual or group.
Today, the Dead Rabbit is a modern Irish bar with a young hip staff that serves great cocktails, amazing whiskey, and good food. It offers several places to drink and dine. An informal long and narrow ground-floor pub/taproom is cozy and comfortable. The second floor houses the more exclusive main drinking/dining parlor, while the top floor offers a private function room that hold about 60 people. Old photographs, sports memorabilia, and some Civil War mementos decorate the walls.
We only visited the street-level taproom for a round of cocktails before moving on to a nearby restaurant for dinner, but next time, we plan to stay longer and request a table upstairs.









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